


The Games I Play

by leahholmes12



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Addiction, Alcoholism, Choking, F/M, Kinky sex, Light Bondage, Mental Illness, Murder, Piss Play, Prequel, Ransom Drysdale Being an Asshole, Spanking, Theft, basically Ransom being a sexual deviant, basically all the bad things rolled into one fic, brief domestic violence, dark!ransom, mentions of child abuse, unidentified female character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leahholmes12/pseuds/leahholmes12
Summary: Nobody wakes up one day and decides to kill their grandfather. Ransom is no exception. This fic contains his backstory, showing what led him from a privileged upbringing to a first-degree murder conviction. His character is deep, filled with inner turmoil and confusion, and eventually is swallowed up by the darkness he hides within.This fic is dark with many adult themes. In later chapters, there are:- Mentions of child abuse- Brief mentions of domestic violence- Bondage, piss play, and other kinks- Theft- Mentions of murderTen-part, pre-written, daily updated fic.
Relationships: Ransom Drysdale/Original Female Character(s), Ransom Drysdale/Unidentified Female Character
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	1. Pregame (Introduction)

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please read the tags. This fic is dark with many adult themes. In later chapters, there are:
> 
> \- Mentions of child abuse  
> \- Brief domestic violence  
> \- Bondage, piss play, and other kinks  
> \- Theft  
> \- Mentions of murder 
> 
> I will post specific warnings before each new chapter as well.

It was a sport - convincing vulnerable, innocent women to love him. It was a game he became an expert at playing. 

He would pull them in with his good looks, expensive cologne, and charming personality. For weeks or months, being with him was utter bliss. A girl would wake up to fresh flowers, steaming coffee on the bedside, and a blossoming of love bites leftover from the night’s passionate lovemaking. He would shower her in jewelry and clothes, allow her to bloom visually into the woman of her dreams. She would start to feel safe, like this might be _it_ and he might be _him_. 

Just when the girl started to ask about moving forward, about meeting parents, or gifting a dresser drawer to keep her clothes in at his place, he would start to pull back. The flowers would stop, the sex would become too rough, the frequency of gifts and dates would petter to an end. She would never become more than a notch on his bedpost. Ransom was sure of that. 

Just when he truly got bored, he would end it. And the game always ended on his terms, where the winner was declared when the girl shed a thousand tears. He would tell her that he can’t be tied down, that he suddenly has to move across the country, or another selection from his expansive collection of lies. He got off on the feeling of being desperately wanted by these girls. He loved knowing that he could manipulate a woman like that, and he loved watching her break when he ended things. Drunk on power, he would immediately begin searching for the next opponent. 

The game was always played with this comfortable, expertly crafted routine. He had become used to the motions - even looked forward to seeing how much her mascara would run when he ended things. His strategy was foolproof. Ransom always won; the girl was never, never supposed to be the winner. 

One day, a year before Marta started working for his grandfather, a girl finally bested him. Similar to Jay Gatsby and his green light, she became memory of deep passion, affection, and love long after their affair ended. She was the first and the last girl to ever win.


	2. First Inning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:
> 
> \- Drug use   
> \- Rough sex

She was the only girl in his Physics 505 class - advanced electromagnetics - and was a rarity in higher level science classes for both her gender and her appearance. In the three previous years, Ransom had seen only a handful of females in his classes and none of them were remotely pretty. But her… she was slender, dressed in a flowing sundress, and had a set of black glasses perched on her nose. At first, he thought she might be in the wrong class. She appeared more like a dull sorority sister than some who could hold her own against an army of numbers. But after she scored a perfect on their first exam, tying grades with him, he knew she was something special. That semester, she became his next target. 

It took several long weeks to convince her to go out with him. He slipped her notes when he arrived to class (always fashionably late), winked when she turned around to pass back papers, the works. None of it worked on her. Finally, after he’d commented on the rigor of a lesson and worries about finishing the accompanying assignment, she was roped in. Her heart was kind - too kind to let a classmate fall behind. 

Ransom settled for coffee one crisp fall afternoon. He had promised to work on their mountain of homework together, which clearly was the best angle to play in his favor. In all honesty, he’d been surprised to have her accept; she knew quite well that he’d never turned in an assignment before. She certainly wasn’t dumb enough to realize that he had no intentions of breaking that streak either. 

He didn’t pick up his pencil for the entire two hours they spent on the patio outside of the campus hub. Ever the studious woman, she placed her yellow wooden pencil at the top of the page and worked through the problems. Ransom chimed in with his commentary - telling her to check her derivatives or to remind her that the object is moving at a constant velocity - while sipping his black coffee with a splash of whiskey, just enough to give him a buzz without alerting her. These seemingly harmless ventures into drinking would eventually lead to more dangerous outcomes in the course of a few years. However, for now, Ransom would choose to overlook these until he went plummeting deep into addiction after she left him. 

When she took the tea bags out of her drink, he was sure to note the brand and flavor. It was something he’d never care to file away with another girl prior, but she was different. He needed to get to know her, understand what made her tick, so he would continue his winning streak. He may have gotten lucky with his tactics thus far, but she’s too smart. She won’t fall for the same tricks twice. 

Her intellect matched his own, which is something he never found in a previous partner. When she briefly stopped working to sip at her drink, their banter was witty and sprinkled with serious conversations about physics (her major) and engineering (his). The first hint that his undoing was imminent was when she pointed out an obvious flaw in his understanding of a concept, and Ransom didn’t feel the need to slap her for embarrassing him. All of the other girls could barely form a coherent thought about anything other than fashion, celebrities, and Ransom’s party-drug habit. This one could hold her own. A coveted rarity.

She didn’t seem bothered by his snide comments or his blunt observations about her method of solving the problems. In fact, she often sent back an equally rude retort. While she worked, Ransom observed how effortlessly she managed to draw him in. He was interested, yet very concerned. It would be easy for her to best him, he could see. To usher those terrifying thoughts away, he lit up a cigarette without caring about the dozens of people moving around them. To test her, he blew a perfect smoke ring in her direction. 

She glanced up at him with an eyebrow arched. Her hand extended outwards, beckoning him to share. Taking the bait, Ransom leaned forward and gently placed the smoking cigarette between her index and middle fingers. 

This audacious girl dropped it to the ground and smashed it with the toe of her beaten Converse before asking him to check over her newly completed problem. He simply reached into his pocket and took out another, which he poised precariously between his lips to tease her. Careful not to let the remaining cigarette meet its friend, he spoke out of the corner of his mouth when he pointed out her only mistake. Later, he would learn that she made these mistakes on purpose, just so they could converse. 

This time, she didn’t take the offending object from Ransom. Instead she winked before reaching for his lighter. With a flick of her thumb, the flame lit and caught on the end of his cigarette. She told him she didn’t care if he smoked, just don’t blow it in her damn face. 

And so Ransom learned that she would put up with his shit as long as it didn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t be a fixer - quite unlike the others. 

Under the guise of planning a future study session, he asked for her phone number. After she scribbled her digits onto a shred of paper, he tucked it securely into his wallet. It remained there, folded up and serving as a reminder of her, until he turned his belongings to the police a decade years later. 

Ransom truly knew he was fighting a losing battle when he felt himself actually feeling something more for her. He would stop by Starbucks to pick up her favorite tea before they attended their shared class, just because he could. Her face would light up with happiness when she entered the classroom and walked to her coveted front-row seat. She would give him a small smile, lips pressed together but mouth curving up to the rims of her glasses. He would wink at her from the back of the classroom while he rode off the high that came with gaining her attention. 

The perks of being a privileged only child were immense; however, his favorite was the spacious apartment his parents rented for him. No roommates, no bills, just a place for him to smoke pot, drink copious amounts of alcohol, and fuck every girl he came across. It was the ultimate college dream.   
Hours after his encounter with her, Ransom finished off his shot of Fireball and turned his attention to the blonde girl beside him. She was two beers and at least four shots in, which meant she was hanging onto Ransom’s every word as tightly as she was his forearm. She laughed a little too loud, swung a bit when she walked, but she made an effort to touch his crotch whenever she could. Considering they were sprawled out on his leather sofa, that wasn’t a particularly difficult feat. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back on the cushions, and took a long drag of his marijuana cigarette. The smoke curled with his exhale, something that mesmerized high-Ransom. 

“Oh, Hugh,” she giggles, grasping his arm tightly. (Ransom never let his one night stands call him by his middle name. It was too personal.) “You’re _so_ funny!” 

Ransom, desperate to feel her ass grind against his hardening cock, moved to pull her onto his lap with one strong tug. He poised the cigarette between his lips as he wrapped He slings his arm around the girl’s shoulders to keep her close and to steady himself. In her ear, he whispered, “Make me hard, baby.” His fingers ghosted down her arm to her hip, where he dug them into her flesh, and started to gyrate his hips against hers. 

Absentmindedly, he wondered what it would feel like to have _her_ on his lap. He wondered if she would reach back to yank his hair or slither his hand prematurely between her thighs. He wondered if she would smoke a joint with him after he fucked her brains out. Slowly, _she_ became his every thought. 

Again, she unpleasantly giggled and brought Ransom back to his unfortunate reality. When she leaned back against his chest, Ransom noticed her nipple peeking out from her low-cut dress. He raised a hand to tuck it away but made sure to tweak it between his index and thumb before doing so. Her pupils dilated with her arousal, and he knew he’s getting lucky tonight. 

And about five minutes later, he pushed the girl onto her back, across the length of the sofa. He was too drunk and high to care about her intentions; he just wanted to fantasize about having _her_ wither under his iron grasp. He licked his lips as he imagined the feel of grabbing _her _ass or forcing his dick into her mouth. The unfortunate girl currently at his mercy slid sloppily across the leather seats so that her dress rode up to her hips, thus showing her lacy panties. Ransom wondered if _she_ worn lace-trimmed, hot pink panties too or if she opted for a conservative set of cotton boyshorts. His cock twitched at the thought of trying to sneak a look up _her_ dress in class the next day. __

__Ransom draped his body over hers. He ran his fingertips up her leg, past her hips, and up to her breasts. His heartbeat raced as he rubbed her nipples through the fabric, and he tugged them out of their restraints. He imagined that he’s touching the breasts of his _her_ and that they mold to his palm like this girl’s does. The girl loudly moaned with each of his rough touches. When he took her tit in his mouth, the girl nearly shouted. He massaged the other with his palm and slid his leg between hers to grind his growing cock against her._ _

__With his mouth sucking on her nipple and dick properly being stimulated, Ransom moved his right hand down to her panties. He pushed them aside and delved his index finger inside of her, in what must have been interpreted as an intention to pleasure her. Truly, he just wanted to see if she was wet enough for him to jam his dick smoothly into._ _

__The only reason he’s hard was the grinding. This girl’s body and her reactions to him barely caused a twitch down south. She’s a pathetic substitute for the girl he really craves. When he fluttered his eyes closed, he was pretending there was a different girl he had his fingers inside._ _

__Soon, his imaginings became too much for him to handle. He withdrew his hand and let her tit fall back to her chest. In a second, his cock was out and he positioned himself between the girl’s legs. She asked about a condom, to which he quickly complied. With the girls he plays the games with, he never bothered to wear one. He made sure they were set on birth control; the raincoat always mutes the intensity for him. When he pushed inside of her, she moaned loudly and he released a deep, guttural noise from the back of his throat. Without giving her a moment to adjust, he began to fuck her. Hard._ _

__Her whimpers only fueled his pacing. He liked to see how he could influence the pleasure - or pain - of each girl. Once, she tried to push him off. He responded by grabbing her throat in a strong grip. In his wild fantasies, _she_ loved it when he abused her. _She_ wouldn’t cry or push him away; _she_ would beg for more._ _

__Eventually, this girl’s whining was too annoying for him to continue. So he slipped out and decided to finish himself. Ransom pumped his hand fast up and down his dick until he felt the pressure build. Before he came, he shifted his weight up to that his cock was level with her belly, tugged off the condom, and then shot ribbons all over her tits. After, he rubbed his cum into her skin with the tip of cock so that she was covered in his sticky seed._ _

__The girl tried to pull him down to kiss her, but he stiffened his back. As a rule, he didn’t show true affection towards the one-night-standers and kissing feels like an intimate action not to be wasted with someone he won’t see again. She looked disappointed, but the look in his eyes kept her from speaking out. He cleared his throat awkwardly and extended a hand to help her sit up. He produced a pack of wipes to clean her up, but instead of doing the gentlemanly thing, he tossed them to her to accomplish herself while he reached for his drink. Without his consent and while he is otherwise busy, the girl pressed a kiss to his temple. Ransom immediately straightened up, placed the drink gently on his coffee table, and tugged his pants back up._ _

__“I didn’t -” she started to say._ _

__“Don’t give a fuck,” he harshly interjected as he reached again for his drink. The alcohol washed over him and helped deepen his state of intoxication. “It was lovely to meet you, but you need to get the hell out of my apartment,”_ _

__She looked at him with her eyes wide in surprise. “You don’t want to meet again?”_ _

__“No.”_ _

__“Oh, um, okay.” Her voice cracked with emotion. Ransom feared she might cry - not an uncommon occurrence - and wanted her to leave before he finds out for sure._ _

__The girl tucked her breasts into her top, adjusted her underwear, and gave him one last glance before leaving his apartment_ _

__Ransom felt no remorse whatsoever. Just pure relief and longing for another two shots._ _


	3. Second Inning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: 
> 
> -Drug use

The crunch of finals had gotten to her. The stress had her second guessing herself, which led her to frantically calling Ransom at 9:00 the night before their final exam. She rattled off facts and equations while begging him to interject all while he smoked a hand-rolled joint with a glass of chilled beer in his free hand. He let her babble nearly incoherently for a few minutes before casually suggesting she come to his apartment, where he could see her notes in person and could check her usually impeccable work. In her vulnerable state, she immediately agreed. 

Ransom let her in, dressed in low-slung flannel pajamas pants and nothing else and cigarette dangling from his lips. Unlike the others, she didn’t even give his bare chest a second glance as she pushed past him. She was on a mission, and it didn’t involve running her hands along his naked skin.

Until it finally did. 

As the hour approached 2:00AM, her confidence was built back. She’d read the textbook five times and solved a hundred problems while sitting crossed legged on his bedroom floor before her eyes finally met his. He prodded her to call it a night after seeing the redness in the whites of her eyes, which she agreed on. Her books and notes were pushed into her bag a second later, and Ransom graciously accepted her thanks. The moment felt right for him; it was time to assert the next stage of the game. 

His hand grabbed her sleeve just as she turned to leave the room. Her eyebrows crinkled in confusion, but before she could ask he pressed his mouth firmly to hers. 

Her arms snaked around his neck to pull him closer. The action was rough, enough to cause Ransom to teeter on his feet for a split second, and he tightly wound his arms around her thin torso. Like butter, he molded his mouth to fit hers while relishing in the butterflies fluttering in his lower stomach. The reaction to having her so close was chemical. 

When he moved his mouth from hers in favor of mouthing at her neck, he drew in the intoxicating scent of her skin. She smelled so clean and pure - both things Ransom would never be. He balled the fabric of her sweatshirt in his fists to keep from biting down, hard, on the expanse of smooth skin under his lips. She was too innocent to ruin just yet. 

“Get your pretty ass into my bed,” Ransom growled into her ear. His teeth gently tugged at her earlobe to elicit a breathy moan from her perfect mouth. 

She tilted her head back to release her flesh from grip. “What makes you think I will?” 

Ransom released the hold on her sweatshirt so he could slide his hands down her back, over her hips, and to cup her ass through her thin sweatpants. “I always get what I want, and right now I want you.” 

Minutes later, he guided her to his unmade bed, with sheets that were laiden with the sexual juices of his previous opponents. When the backs of her knees hit his mattress, Ransom pushed her back. Locks of her hair fanned out around her head like a halo while her sweatshirt rode up to reveal a glimpse of her creamy stomach. 

“You a virgin?” he asked as he pulled at the tie on his pants. The red flannel pooled around his feet and his cock sprung alive.

Her eyes raked down his body before settling on his hardening dick with her lower lip captured underneath her front teeth. “No.”

He was a goner when she sat up and yanked off her worn sweatshirt to reveal nothing underneath. He liked to imagine that she’d done that on purpose, just as much as he liked to imagine his cum dripping out between her thighs.His fingers danced up her sides to tug and tease at her nipples, to mold her breasts to fit his palms. 

“So damn sexy,” Ransom mumbled against her lips. It’s too early to tell how she’ll respond to his typical manhandling of women, so he opts to use his hand to nudge her down onto the pillows. Once she’s laying flat on her back, he climbs swiftly on top of her. Without regard for her pleasure, he latches his mouth onto her neck and sucks hard. When the beginning of a hickey start to show, the world will know that this girl was claimed as his. All while he mouthed at her skin, he ground his dick against her pelvis, desperate for the pleasure that arrives with friction. It’s quite animalistic, the way he ruts against her. 

Eventually, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to fuck her pretty little mouth, lips red and swollen from kissing. So he told her in his sternest voice, that she was to get down so do exactly that. She looked up at him with lust-blown eyes and didn’t dare protest. 

Sheets tangled around Ransom’s ankles when he flipped them over. Like a good girl, she scrambled past his hips, so she could kneel at the end of the bed. Like the slut he liked to imagine she secretly was, she took him whole. Ransom had to restrain himself from grabbing a fistful of her hair, from forcing his dick further down her throat, from fucking her mouth with an agressive pace. It was too early; he can’t scare her away just yet. His toes curled instead. 

Waves of intense euphoria started to course up his veins to signal the incoming orgasm. It takes immense control not to shoot his load, but Ransom is quite skilled in the sexual arts. He can delay it just long enough to get inside her. But first…

“Stop,” he commands. She lifts off his cock with a satisfying pop and looks up at him, lips bright red and shiny with her glasses skewed on the tip of her nose. The girl in front of him is unrecognizable from the girl who almost scored higher than him on a test. 

Several empty bottles clanged to the floor, followed closely by her leggings and underwear, so he could lap up the wetness growing between her thighs. In hindsight, he should have known she was different then. He never had an interest in pleasing the other girls, and that night he ate her until she came into his mouth. Her back arched high off the bed as she shouted his name accompanied with utterances of “don’t stop” and “fuck, Ransom.” A twinge of delicious pain radiated from where she tightly gripped his hair. Instances like this were the first indicators that he didn’t have traditional sexual preferences. 

“You on birth control, baby?” he breathlessly said once he emerged from between her legs. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before straightening up. 

She nodded. As a result of her orgasm, her voice was slightly choppy as she replied, “Yes, never missed a day.” 

“No rain slicker,” Ransom decided without waiting for her consent. He’s clean, and judging her character, he feels confident she does too. “You’re mine now, sweetheart.”

He swallowed her soft moan when he finally pressed inside of her while he savored the bite of her fingernails into his bicep. Ecstasy resulted from their bodies meeting in the most intimate of ways, at least on his end. Missionary was never his favorite position - too boring - but he didn’t mind today. He wanted to see how his body could affect her and watch her lips fall open to allow a slew of breathy moans to escape. 

He was the pestle, she was the perfectly fitted mortar. A mortar that had no qualms in reaching back, between Ransom’s thighs, to fondle his balls as he fucked her hard and fast from behind. 

When the pressure built to a climax, he released himself deep inside of her. After his breathing calmed and cock was soft, he withdrew and fell down onto the mattress beside her with a hard thunk. After sharing a long, slow kiss, she fell asleep, still stark naked, in his arms. While Ransom rode out his post-orgasm high, he twisted a silky lock of her hair around his finger as he pondered going to Walmart to buy her a fresh set of clothes for the morning. A swift shake of his head brought him tumbling back into reality; Ransom Drysdale doesn’t purchase clothes for his conquests. There wasn’t a point. He never stuck around long enough to see her wear them twice.   
However, when he moved her backpack to the opposite side of the room, he saw lacy panties and a colorful dress folded neatly on top. A sly smile creeps across this face; she’d definitely known she’d be staying here tonight. Her perceptiveness was thoroughly on point. 

When they took (and aced) the final later that morning, Ransom liked to imagine his seed was still crusty on her skin, that everyone was looking at the deepening purple bruise on her collarbone and knew she was forever marked as his.


	4. Third Inning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: 
> 
> \- Drug abuse (mentions of cocaine)  
> \- Piss Play

And months later, he lost the final fight when he’d accidentally whispered I love you one night, cloaked in velvety darkness and her cheap, scratchy dorm sheets. She’d effectively started to take a crowbar to his heart a few weeks ago, but now… Now she held his heart in her palm. She’d shown him compassion that he’d never felt before. He didn’t know if this was love, lust, or some other potent combination, but he did know that he didn’t want her to go anywhere anytime soon. 

It was approaching two in the morning and the pair had just put away homework (her), and smoked a final cigarette (him) for the night. Both twenty-somethings were scantily clothed once they peeled back the quilt of her dorm-issued, single bed, and prepared for a night packed together like a tin of sardines. Ransom kicked the fabric away with his feet. He hated the feeling of her low thread count, dollar store bedding. It reeked of poverty, but if he wanted to make it to his test on time tomorrow, it was a necessary evil. He needed her to be his alarm clock, one he can’t snooze until noon. “God, where are we? A fucking hospital?”

“Do you want to be?” she asks with her eyebrows wiggling. She slipped under the sheets and pulled the quilt up to her chin. Mere centimeters separated their faces, thus eliminating the need to speak above a whisper. “I can be your naughty nurse.” 

Ransom chuckled. “I’d rather be the police officer putting you into cuffs.”

“Do it,” she challenged. 

He was on her a split second later, which isn’t too difficult considering their close proximity. His lower body pressed firmly against hers in such a way to allow her to feel him growing hard. Her wrist was pinned above her head with his hand and followed soon by the other. With his large hands, he’s able to hold both wrists in one grasp. 

Since her hands were confined, she became immensely vulnerable. Just how he liked it. The sudden rush of power leaves him feeling drunk. Some of their previous sexual exploits helped him realize just how much he likes to dominate others, to make himself feel like the most important man in the room. It’s a toxic combination, this feeling mixed in with the line of coke he’d experimented with just an hour or so before. 

Ransom used his free hand to rather clumsily pull the waistband of his boxers down to his knees while kneeling slightly. His half-hard dick bounced against his stomach before hanging between his thighs. He shuffled forward, still holding her hostage in his iron grip, so that the tip of his cock rested on her lips. A bead of precome already oozed from the slit. 

“Suck it,” he demanded after whacking her hollowed cheeks with his cock. “Now.”

She opened her mouth for him and lifted her head to engulf him. 

His eyes fluttered closed as he welcomed the waves of pleasure. She knew just how to take him, just how to lick and suck and hum so that he was hovering on the brink of finishing. With every move, she threw him into a new level of euphoria. The visual of her face buried in his pubic hair, cock to the root inside of tight mouth, would forever be ingrained in his mind. Long after she was gone, he’d remember these moments and cum with her name on his lips. 

If he listened to her moans, he’d know he was being too greedy. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at her spread legs to see a small mark of glistening moisture on the sheets and wanted to fuck her senseless. The days of easing into the main attraction were long gone. 

“You’re wet already?” he casually commented. “What a slut.” 

She pushed him out of her mouth just long enough to say, “Only for you.”

Ransom shoved his dick back inside once she finished the last syllable. For good measure, he slaps her cheek - not hard enough to really hurt but definitely to give a good sting. She moaned and arched her hips upwards into nothing. Through gritted teeth, he sneers, “You better fucking be.”

She spit out his cock a second time, but before he got a chance to shove it back in, she says, “Please let me up. I have to pee.” 

“Oh?” Ransom cocked an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?” 

Her head fell back onto the pillows, her hair a wild mess. “Because I have to go?” 

His breathing picked up. This was new, something they hadn’t played with before. At the thought, his dick twitched so that it hit her lower lip. “Then go.”

“Right here?”

Ransom leaned back and traced his finger down her stomach to between her thighs. “Your sheets are already shit. What’s a little piss?”

He released her wrists so he could position himself lower down. Using his teeth, he yanked her underwear down her thighs. Before he could get them any further, she released. When she was finished Ransom’s hair dripped from her initial spurt and his entire pelvic region and dick was slick from where he ground against her. It was undoubtedly the hottest thing he’d done. 

“You’re sick, you know that?” she said once she was done. 

“Oh, I damn well do.” Ransom was so hard, it physically hurt him. He loved the feeling of being sexually deviant, and he secretly liked that she called him out on it. He wanted to be told that he’s twisted, that he was different. Roughly, he pushed himself inside of her and began ramming against her. Her small fists grabbed at her soiled sheets and arched her back to push them closer together. 

He bent down to improve the angle such that his chest is firmly flush against hers. When he lowered to bite down on her earlobe, she cupped his cheek in her hand. Without registering, he leaned into her touch. Despite what humiliation he’d put her through just moments before, she was whispering his name and he started kissing her jaw and neck. His thrusting slowed slightly as he enjoyed the feeling of her fingers on his cheek. Despite their dirty, kinky sex, love was present. It had been from the start, just neither of them bothered to point it out. 

The rare and unexpected emotion bubbled up inside of him. He looked into her eyes, face still in her hand, and saw the softness she looked at him with. Now, he was barely shuffling inside of her. None of the other girls could keep up with him, let alone allow him to half of things she’s permitted in bed. She trusted him, Ransom could tell. It’s an unpredictable outcome in his carefully created game. The worst part was that he was beginning to think that maybe he trusted her too. 

It was strange. He’d never felt this way about another human, and certainly never expected another to feel that way about him. In a voice so soft and fragile that it surprised him, Ransom whispered, “I love you.” It's the first time he’s dared to speak those delicate words to another - even to his parents, in recent memory. 

The air stilled between the two of them as he stopped thrusting to wait for her response, mostly because he felt his cock soften from his sudden vulnerability. Instead of laughing at his declaration, she kissed him square on the mouth and then told him she loved him more. They were covered in urine and sexual fluids, but were so involved in the moment that they couldn’t care less. 

After their declarations, Ransom made love to her gently, passionately, and unlike how he’d ever done before. They whispered I love you a dozen times, peppered in between Ransom’s rough grunts and her soft moans. There wasn’t any slapping, choking, or other kinky business. It was just love. Or whatever emotion a monster like Ransom could possibly feel. 

For nearly ten years, Ransom never stopped loving her. It only grew deeper with each passing day. 

As did his drug addiction, alcoholism, and his budding obsession with control.


	5. Halftime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:   
> \- Mentions of underage sex  
> \- Drug use  
> \- Implied child abuse

He realized he was utterly fucked when she liked being spanked and loved her hair pulled. She would look up at him with her glasses skewed and beg for more. She allowed him to explore the crevices of his slightly perverse sexuality without a shred of judgement. Upon reflection, Ransom is certain that the intimacy they created during those early weeks opened the doors to allowing him to delve deeper into the hidden away darkness of his being. If it wasn’t for those early days where he felt confident in her trust, he might have never allowed certain dark, horrible parts of his being to see the light of day. 

Their sexual openness naturally led to allowing him to explore the damaged parts of his life in the way that shared intimacy can allow. With her head resting on his chest, she would listen to him talk about his parents’ lack of interest when he was growing up. Nighttime darkness provided a security blanket that helped him to tell her about his budding struggles with alcohol and drug abuse. She didn’t try to fix him like the others did; she just tried to make him feel less alone. Most importantly, she wasn’t afraid of the demons in his past. 

She learned about the nannies that raised him and how his parents used gifts to buy his love. He’d never wanted for a material object but craved affection like a mosquito thirsts for blood. He spills the details about how his parents pressed unrealistic expectations on him from the start, such as teaching him to read at four years and forcing him to play tennis as soon as he could hold the racquet. They used his achievements as validation of their parenting, despite knowing Ransom only did it to please them. They didn’t care that he had trouble making friends or that his private reading tutor touched him. They wanted the Drysdale family to be the pinnacle of a society family and chose to overlook what didn’t satisfy that. Richard was too busy fucking his nanny to notice his son spiraling out of control. 

He lost his virginity at 15 to his German au pair on an especially lonely night. At that age, he’d started to accept his circumstances but still nursed an ounce of hope that they might change. He’d received exciting news that day at school - he’d been accepted into AP Calculus as a sophomore - and eagerly waited for his parents to arrive home. Once school ended, he’d texted them to hurry back and that he had news. However, Linda and Richard came home just past midnight, after Ransom had retired to his room, and his news was soon forgotten. To cope with his sadness, he coaxed the au pair to his bed. That opened up an avenue of rebellion that not only was immensely pleasurable but also the ultimate fuck-you to his parents. They’d die knowing Ransom was banging girls twice his age. Or that he’d started smuggling his father’s cigars to puff out his bedroom window just a week later. 

When he entered college, he thought he was able to be himself. Immediately, he stopped playing tennis and started studying the hardest subject he could think of - mechanical engineering. He’d always been good at math and loved working with his hands. Hours and hours alone in a high-tech haven of a home sparked his natural curiosity in how things worked. Linda loved to brag about how Ransom took apart the toaster and put it back together again when he was a mere eleven years old. A miniscule part of him thought that his parents might acknowledge him if he was able to succeed in such a demanding career. 

Honestly, Ransom found the program too easy. He didn’t need to study, didn’t complete homework, and seldom attended class. He became the elusive student who scored perfectly on every assessment, but that the professor never saw. As a result, he became bored. Drugs and alcohol became his best friends around the time he started fucking every girl he came across. The combination of these elements would propel him through to his senior year. The three years before he met her spurred in a mix of differential equations, loud music, and hickies showing on his neck. 

She changed everything.


	6. Fourth Inning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:   
> \- Theft

Months after they met, they graduated from college together (a degree in engineering for Ransom, a degree in physics for her). There regretfully aren’t any pictures of them together that day. He was adamant that she be kept separate from his family. They’d ruined every other positive thing in his life - his childhood a prime example - and he didn’t want them to shatter the delicate, special love he had for her. She held his heart in her palm. That didn’t stop him from clapping for her sweeping across the stage until his hands turned red. 

He will never forget how proud he was of her - the girl who had managed to play his game far longer than any other. The one who had managed to make it feel like love. 

A job was never in the cards for Ransom. For almost a year, he worked in a small engineering firm while she went back for her masters degree. He couldn’t handle being managed by some mysterious man through a computer screen; it felt too much like how viciously his mother would dictate his life. The man didn’t understand that Ransom needed a little freedom of choice, that he needed to feel like he was in a minuscule amount of control. However, corporate businessmen didn’t feel the same way. They criticized his work, told him he was worthless, and offered the same kind of mental abuse that his parents had. 

For a year, he let himself spiral out of control. It felt like he was ten again, under the iron grip of someone who didn’t care about him. This time, the math wasn’t enough of a distraction, and he couldn’t use his wit to swindle his superiors. 

She pulled him back to reality with her comforting words and gentle touches, late at night and early in the mornings. She told him she loved him, that he was the sun she orbited around. He would correct her, countering that with an example of two binary stars. They orbited around the center of their shared gravity, where the gravity could be equated to their love for each other. They would lay in bed for hours while she ran her fingers through his hair and listened to him cry out his frustrations. Ransom couldn’t declare the final victory over her. In the dark corners of his mind, he knew he’d kill himself if he didn’t have her support. But these days, the game wasn’t a forethought. Slowly, their lives were becoming too intertwined to possibly rip apart cleanly. And he never inflicted that kind of pain upon himself voluntarily. 

When he quit his job, she never pressured him to try again. His parents paid for everything anyways. After investing a bit of his money into the stock market, Ransom started to make his own money on his own terms. A few months of self-paced computer science classes helped him learn how to go through thick firewalls, jump over password-protected accounts, and start to slowly take back the money he thought he deserved. His parents fucked him beyond repair; it was only fair that he take reparations from them. A thousand dollars here, ten thousand there… it was never noticed. His father certainly wasn’t smart enough to put two and two together. Or if it was detected, his parents never inquired about it. 

Ransom had been close to his grandfather ever since he’d interned with him that one summer. It only took a few weeks before Harlan realized Ransom wasn’t working and confronted him about it. His grandfather took the liberty to talk to him about his wasted potential, the money thrown away to fund his expensive education, and the disappointment he felt knowing his eldest grandchild had failed so pitifully. A week later, he told Harlan about his mental plummet and opened up about the pain of his childhood. A week later, Harlan wired the first chunk of his allowance. Ransom bought himself a golden watch and for her another set of first edition books. 

Pilfering money from Harlan was a line Ransom could never cross. Sure, his computer skills would easily bypass any security, but taking a grandparent’s money seemed to enter a new circle of hell. Besides, Harlan had shown a kindness to him that nobody in his family ever had. How could he repay him by taking more money that didn’t belong to him? 

Despite his new income, Ransom didn’t stop stealing from his parents. Ransom was back in control of his life, throwing thousands of dollars into cars, clothes, and drugs, while he started to lose control of her. 

It was to the point where she wanted more from him. She wanted to create a home with him, to change her last name, to start a family. This was the clear moment when he should’ve stopped, when he should’ve started to pull out his winning moves. He should have asked her to clean out her drawer in his bathroom or to return the key to his apartment. It would be easier to end things now than to allow himself to grow closer to her. The checkmate was finally visible, but Ransom couldn’t bring himself to call it. She meant more to him than anyone else did; he couldn’t survive without her companionship. That was the first terrifying moment of his descent into defeat. He was growing dependent. 

They’d been together for what felt like eons (but was probably just under five years) before he tossed her a diamond ring. She was curled up in his bed with a steaming mug of tea by her side when the ring softly made an indent in the fluffy comforter. Just like when he’d taken her arm the first night they spent together, she wrinkled her eyebrows together in confusion. 

The mattress dented when he sat down on the edge at her feet. He told her he wouldn’t go down on his fucking knee and asked her to come with him to the courthouse the next week. In response, she simply slipped the ring on her third finger, on her left hand, before turning back to her book. Ransom didn’t see it as losing just yet; he saw this as adding another level of intrigue into the playbook. He couldn’t admit to himself that he was truly in love with her or that he hoped the game would never end. That wasn’t how Hugh Ransom Drysdale operated. 

The justice of the peace married them with only her sister as a witness on a chilly October afternoon five years after their first date. She wore a white cocktail dress and allowed her sister to wind roses into her hair. Her eyes were slightly red from exhaustion - her job drained her, yet she loved it almost as much as she loved him. To counteract that, she’d hastily applied make-up in the car, something he’d only seen her in a handful of times. Even though she certainly wasn’t the conventional bride, Ransom thought she never looked more beautiful. 

Both of them didn’t feel the need to write vows. He could look into her eyes and know she was promising him her world without her uttering a word. When he said “I do,” Ransom hit the final nail on his coffin. The ceremony was short and mechanical, simply the barebones of a marriage ceremony, but it was perfect for them. They never made a big deal of anything and viewed this trip as nothing more than a legal proceeding. Ransom knew his love for her wouldn’t change whether they were legally man and wife or not. 

When the justice announced them Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Drysdale, Ransom had to bite back tears in a rare show of emotion. He felt whole for the first time in his life. Their lips pressed together in their first kiss as a married couple in perhaps their first true case of PDA. In this moment, with his cold and unfamiliar wedding band constricting his finger, Ransom never loved her more. After withdrawing, he used the pad of his thumb to whisk away a tear - the owner unknown - off of his cheekbone and another off of hers. 

Outside, fall was setting in fast. Leaves crunched underneath their feet as they trekked across the parking lot while squirrels frantically buried acorns underneath the bases of trees. In essence, it was a picturesque day to have an elopement. All was calm and beautiful. 

They said goodbye to her sister, who kissed both of them on the cheek before departing. Ransom would be lying if he said the unexpected affection didn’t send a quick shock down to his dick. He shook the thought away shamefully while wondering how he could possibly think that just an hour after getting married. In the past five years, he never thought about another woman, so how could this innocent kiss from his sister-in-law trigger such a response in his body? 

Ransom knew he’s a slut, just one who hasn’t been particularly slutty in a few years. Under his breath, he muttered, “Who knew a whore like me could snag a woman like her.” 

She scoffed beside him, probably thinking that he’d meant for her to hear that. “More like: who knew a bitch like me could snag a man like you.”

“Hey,” Ransom threw his hands up in a gesture of defense. “You said it, not me.” 

She playfully hit him on the arm. “But now you’re stuck with this bitch for the rest of your life.”

Ransom slapped her ass a little harder than publicly appropriate. “Watch your mouth, Mrs. Drysdale.”

She winked at him as she walked around to the passenger side of the car. “Who’s gonna make me?”

“You know better than to ask.” He slipped into the drivers set and tossed their marriage license and other documents into the backseat. When he raised his hips to better slip his hand into his pocket for the keys, she reached for his fly. 

“Eager for our consummation, I see,” he commented with a stoic expression and smooth tone of voice. 

She leaned back and yanked her heels off her feet. They meet as acquaintances with their marriage license a beat later in the back seat. “Just eager to feel your jizz inside of me.”

Ransom’s stomach dropped, but his dick certainly didn’t. “Did I pick up the wrong woman? My wife never talks like that.” 

“Well, marriage has already changed me.” 

“Sure you’re just not using me for my sperm?” 

She laughs “Well, we haven’t had protected sex for years, and I haven’t gotten pregnant yet.” 

He nervously laughed in an effort to cover up the bubbling mess of mixed emotions he started to feel. Ransom knew that was his fault, that they never got pregnant. The doctor had confirmed it a month or so ago, but he’d chosen to lie to her to hide the truth. Six months into their relationship, she’d stopped taking her pills and he never bought condoms. They should have gotten pregnant at least once in that time. However, when they didn’t, both of them went to see fertility specialists separately. Ransom told her that he had a somewhat low sperm count - not that he couldn’t produce a single healthy swimmer. She would be crushed to know that they wouldn’t produce a child, and he didn’t want to deal with the drama. At the time, he didn’t think they’d be together much longer so it wouldn’t matter anyways. 

Ransom bit his lip to distract himself then agreed with her. Then, like the sexually adventurous woman she was, she sucked his cock the entire drive home. 

The only people who knew of their union were her immediate family, her close friends, and Ransom’s grandfather. His other family never knew he was married. It was a carefully protected secret, destined to keep the one positive aspect of his life whole. His mother and father would eat her up and rip her to shreds; they would poison her the same way they’d poisoned their son. He wanted to keep this beautiful and pure love intact, unmaimed. Harlan never pressed his grandson to meet his wife. This was something the elderly man knew Ransom needed to keep personal. 

Ransom had to live with that for the rest of his life, knowing that Harlan loved him so much that he would keep his treasured secret private until his grave. He would never forgive himself for what he did on that fateful night, but that’s a story for another time. 

She’d lived her whole life bouncing between her divorced parents and never remained close with either once she moved out. As a result, it wasn’t unexpected that Ransom only met them a handful of times. A Christmas there, a birthday here. They never intervened in their daughter’s life, so Ransom never felt a need to seek their approval. After the game truly needed, he made sure that she emailed her parents at least once a month. And when the replies stopped, they never thought to question their daughter’s mysterious husband.


	7. Fifth Inning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:   
> \- Heavier drug abuse   
> \- Theft  
> \- Infidelity

The first four and a half years of marriage were pure domestic bliss. They purchased the beautiful, modern home on Kanoke street with her earnings from the research lab and many, many months of Harlan’s allowance. Ransom smuggled a hundred or so thousand from his parents to pay for lavish furnishings to make the place their home. Of course, he still hid his hacking skills from her to avoid conflict; she just assumed that Harlan had been overly generous in the preceding months. Together, they build a seemingly perfect life that was built precariously on Ransom’s lies. 

But Ransom had started to spin secretly out of control. Each day, their front door would close behind her each morning, her car would crunch on the gravel on their driveway, and she would be gone until the evening. He would be left to his own devices, and more often that not it involved something she would have disapproved of. 

Deftly, he’d been taking more and more money from his parents’ account and spending it on selfish means of personal fulfillment. He felt guilty that she was earning their money, that she was being successful in her career while he spent hours alone at home jerking off (using his Pornhub premium subscription) and smoking dope (ordered from a top seller on Craigslist). Daily, Amazon workers would place packages on their doorstep. Towards the end of their first year of marriage, Ransom took out a membership at the country club just to be around other people while she worked. Money seemed to be a naturally renewable resource harvested to fill the growing emptiness inside of him. 

When they celebrated two years of wedded bliss, Ransom had held upwards of fifteen short-term jobs. Again and again, he’d run into bosses who demanded too much from him too quickly or ones who treated him like the scum on their shoes. The suited fucks were half as intelligent as him and couldn’t follow a blueprint to save their asses. In all cases, Ransom saw himself as too superior to possibly follow an order from them. When he tried to follow their expectations, he always crumbled. He could never be a follower. His mother always told him that those who couldn’t succeed were weak, and fuck, he couldn’t succeed while under corperate dictatorship. Fuck his parents, he could never let his grandfather possibly imagine him as something that couldn’t handle the pressures of the world. So nobody except his wife ever knew of all of the companies he’d worked for, and he’d rather them think of him as a lazy bum than a weakling. He would rather them think he never tried than to know he had failed.

Eventually, all of his woes came to a conclusion. 

His right hand moved swiftly up and down his shaft to the beat of the girl fingering herself on the computer screen. A marijuana cigarette was poised between the index and middle fingers of his left while smoke curled from the lit end. 

Just as his climax was approaching, he saw his phone light up with her name. Usually, he’d tell the cam girl to fuck off so he could speak to his wife but today he was feeling exceptionally bad about himself. He didn’t want to hear her talk about how she’d finally completed a stage of research while she ate her healthy lunch at a table surrounded by other successful men. She was probably fucking one of them behind his back since she’d grown bored of her unemployed husband. These unwanted thoughts were becoming more frequent in Ransom’s mind. 

He ignored her call and took a long, satisfying drag of his cigarette..

To the beautiful, plastic-looking Barbie doll on the computer, he said, “Give me your number, sweetheart.” 

The woman pulled her fingers back out from inside of her and leaned back on her hands, thrusting her enhanced breasts forward towards the camera. “Why would I do that, Hugh?”

“So I can call you whenever I want,” he says nonchalantly. His cock twitches, reminding Ransom of his erection. “You’ll be at my beck and call, all goddamn hours of the day.” 

The girl licks her lips as she appears to ponder the request. “You’ll venmo me, yeah?” 

Ransom laughs. “Of course. Money isn’t an issue for me, baby.” 

“Then sure,” she coos before reaching for a dildo just off screen. “Now, where were we?”

For the next five or so minutes, he watched her play with herself before he started to spurt his cum all over the front of his Calvin Klein underwear. It felt dirty, just how he liked it. 

Turns out, she lived only an hour away. Ransom picked up on his theft to help supply her with expensive lingerie and high-quality coke - both things his wife would never approve of. The best part was, this girl was available during the day. She easily filled the empty hours of Ransom’s existence, like a glove fits a hand. While his wife was away, he was at play. 

Drugs, ounces and ounces of drugs, were consumed in these meetings. She knew all the hook ups and he provided endless cash. LSD laced cigarettes, small doses of pure heroin... the works passed through his door. 

He made her call him daddy, beg for him to fuck her, and lived to serve him sexually. Every single aspect of her life, he started to fund. She was dependent on him in a way his wife couldn’t. In a twisted way, this whore became his next secret conquest. 

He couldn’t give up his wife, though. He loved her too much. And that fucking scared him the most. When the next girl was clear on the horizon, he couldn’t shake the previous one. That was not how the game was supposed to be played.


	8. Sixth Inning (Endgame)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> \- Domestic violence

Everything changed on one fateful summer evening. The heat had gotten to him, sticky and sweaty. For someone who had little else but his appearance to live for, Ransom had become irritable. Everything pissed him off - no more coke to snort, no more beer to chug, the Internet was slow, the indoor facilities at the country club closed for maintenance, his mistress suddenly unavailable. This only increased his frustrations about being unemployed or fed his budding paranoia about his wife leaving him. 

She had certainly noticed. He was rough in bed, as if to take out his frustrations on her. He left her with black bruises each tryst. He could see that his situation, what with the evidence of increasing substance abuse and his chronic unemployment. Slowly, he started to see her slip away from him. 

He had to try and save his marriage. In his mind, he knew he needed to come clean to her. She needed to know that he was trying, in his own sick way, to get himself back on track. For the first time in his life, Ransom opened up his life fully to another. He let her see the last lingering bits of uncovered darkness in him, thus revealing how he’d been smuggling his parents’ money for the past two years. He told her that he was trying to see it as a job, that he was practicing managing his money (a blatant lie). Pathetically, he’d even told her he was trying to find another job (another lie). 

She saw through his excuses. Suddenly, she’d tossed off her designer pumps and ripped off her wedding rings. She didn’t want anything to do with his dirty money. She looked him in the eyes and told him he’d crossed a line, that now he was a criminal. He tried to explain that this money was justified - he deserved it! She disagreed, but she was more upset that he’d resorted to stealing money. 

But it didn’t stop there. 

His phone lit up with a call from his cam girl mistress. As with most internet girls, she had a sexually explicit name that could not have deterred any suspicion. To her, it didn’t matter that it had only been only to fill his empty time. He’d still been intimate with another woman, a repeated amount of times, and hid it expertly from her. While she was shouting at him about betraying their vows, Ransom couldn’t muster an ounce of emotion. It felt like all of his capabilities to feel anything had left him. 

Amongst her tears, she admitted that she resented him because he couldn’t work. She told him that he’d changed from the witty, driven man she’d fallen in love with to a lazy, mooching, son of a bitch. She knew he smoked behind her back and that he’d started moving from pot into cocaine, where the experience was much more vivid and longer lasting. The revolving numbers of cases of beer, whiskey, and vodka didn’t go unnoticed while she was at work. Worst of all, she called him a child. A weak, alcoholic, addicted and useless child. 

As she yelled, she grew more and more emotional until he couldn’t understand a word she was blubbering. What he did know, however, was that she was pissing him off. She was making him feel like a piece of shit, just like his parents did when he was growing up. As icing on the cake, she reached into her backpack and tossed an envelope at him. 

Divorce papers. She wanted out. 

That meant that she won the game. And he suffered his first loss. He didn’t like that one little bit. 

In a blind rage, he told her that he was glad he was infertile. There wouldn’t be a child of his coming out of her disgusting pussy, and he was relieved of that. He didn’t need someone like her telling him what to do, patronizing him for not having a job, or calling him an addict and a liar. He would gladly sign her fucking papers. 

She said that she loved him, but that she couldn’t do this anymore. It was definitely time to part ways after ten long years. Her engagement ring and wedding band were thrown to the floor. 

No. She couldn’t win. 

Without thinking, he slapped her across the face. A heavy silence settled over them, filled only with their rugged breathing. He watched a fresh set of tears well up and spill over her cheekbones. When she reached for her cell phone, presumably to call for help, Ransom hit her again. Harder. And again, and again, and again. 

Ransom compartmentalized the rest of the evening away, into a crevice that wouldn’t be visited again for years. A primal part of him took over, and it convinced the rest of him to do the unthinkable. This evening was pushed back into the metaphorical attic of thoughts in Ransom’s head before his emotions exploded again - and the primal parts took control a second time. 

He didn’t like things that didn’t go his way. To him, it was personal. And so, when Harlan cut him out of his will, Ransom let the darkness take over him again


	9. Postgame (epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning:   
> \- Murder

In an icy interrogation room an hour after he’d been arrested for Fran’s murder, an officer tosses a document onto the table before Ransom. A quick glance shows his name with hers, accompanied by a date in October. It’s a copy of his long forgotten marriage license. “So Hugh, you’re married?” 

There’s no use in lying. They’ll find out eventually. Casually, Ransom leans back in his chair and takes off his golden pinky ring with a small amount of resistance from the cuffs around his wrists. The ring makes a metallic sound as it hits the tabletop. His appendages had fattened up too much over the years to fit his wedding band on his ring finger anymore. “Yes.”

“Where’s your wife, then?” the officer prods as he takes a seat across from him. 

Ransom pushes his hair back off of his slick forehead. In a cold, emotionless voice, he replies, “Dead, buried under the cement porch.”

Fin.


End file.
